If you're using a security solution and your Website Uptime Monitoring tool says your website is down although you are able to access it - there could be a few possible reasons.

You have blocked access to certain countries

If the website uptime monitoring tool uses an IP address belonging to country you have blocked access to in Astra, then the tool would not be able to access your website & incorrectly report that your website is down.

How to check

1. Ask your vendor for the IP address used to check your website

2. Visit https://whatismyipaddress.com/ip-lookup and perform a lookup for this IP address
   
   
   

3. Note the country this IP address belongs to
   

4. Now login to your Astra Dashboard and navigate to the Threats page
   

5. In the Trusted/Blocked List, check if this country is blocked

Solution

1. Add the IP ranges used by the tool to the Trusted List from the Threats page in your Astra Dashboard.

2. You can ask your vendor to provide you with the CIDR ranges. Instead of blocking access to a country from the Threats page, you can create a Booster rule to block countries where the User-agent does not match that of your tool

3. Remove the Geo-restrictions for that country so that the tools are able to access your website

Tool used the Googlebot User-agent

Many uptime/SEO tools set the Google Bot User-agent when accessing your website. Since this is a Fake Google Bot, our Bot Blocking module blocks the IP address permanently and prevents it from accessing your website.

Example of a User-agent: Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +https://www.google.com/bot.html)

How to check

1. Ask your vendor for the IP address used to check your website

2. Now login to your Astra Dashboard and navigate to the Threats page

3. In the Threat table, search for the IP address provided by the vendor

4. If an entry exists over there, it means that this IP was blocked and was pretending to be Google Bot

Solution

1. Update your uptime monitoring tool dashboard to use a standard user-agent

2. Add the IP ranges used by the tool to the Trusted List from the Threats page in your Astra Dashboard. You can ask your vendor to provide you with the CIDR ranges.